In today's mobile world, it is commonplace for people to own multiple devices for different purposes. For example, users may have a desktop computer for work, a laptop computer for home use, and a mobile phone for both work and home use. Similarly, a user may have a collection of accounts with different purposes. For example, a user may have accounts for email, contacts, and calendars related to both home and work use.
The user may want the ability to maintain the same account on multiple devices. For example, a user may want a work calendar account to be maintained on both the desktop computer and the mobile device. Various data synchronization methods can be employed to ensure that changes made to an account on one device propagate to a separate device. For example, changes made to an account on one device can be communicated with an intermediate server that uses push functions to synchronize the data onto another device. These methods typically seek to maintain the same account state on all devices. However, prior to synchronizing, each device must be connected with the intermediate server and each account must be added to the devices individually through a setup process. This connection and account setup process typically requires manual intervention by a user and can be onerous.
Furthermore, a user may prefer to change account arrangements on different devices. For example, after adding and synchronizing an account on multiple devices, a user may subsequently wish to remove the account from only one device. For example, a user may purchase a new mobile phone dedicated to work and thereafter repurpose the original mobile phone for strictly personal use. As a result, the user may want to remove the work calendar account from the original mobile phone. Under existing data synchronization methods, if the user removes the work calendar account from the original mobile phone, this account deletion propagates to delete the account from the intermediate server and the desktop computer. Thus, the work calendar will need to be set up again on the relevant devices using the same tedious setup procedure mentioned above.